Self-Care Will Change Your Life for the Better
Self-care is important in every aspect of our lives. From relationships, work, or just within ourselves they are all connected and when they are all being recognized and practiced we can feel a higher sense of satisfaction in our lives. Below we will talk about well-being in an office workplace from both the employee and the boss’s view of how to create a healthy and cohesive work environment, self-care for an individual who has a high performance and cannot detach themselves, and our inner self-care that we can do for ourselves.
By practicing our self-care in all aspects of our lives we can improve our overall satisfaction, create long-lasting relationships, and have an overall healthier lifestyle. In this blog we discuss the importance of caring about employee self-care, preventing burnout, and general self-care that we should all try to practice.
Self Care Within the Company/ Employee Care
- Recognize your employee’s achievements not just with words but also actions
- Employees will only get satisfaction from verbal praises for so long before they begin to not feel valued by it.
- For better understanding, imagine you have a partner who whenever you work really hard for them only thank you and that is it. It can be similar with employees, yes they get their salary but how long will they work hard before they begin to stop trying as much because there are no benefits or goals to reach a reward for them?
- Some smaller ways to show appreciation to your employees are simple and can go a long way to helping your people feel appreciated.
- Compliment their hard work during meetings around their peers (but do not put anyone else down while doing so)
- Post them on social media, either for working hard or for a promotion it is important to show your employees you care, this is the first step to getting them to care more.
- A study from SHRM showed that 70% of employees feel more satisfied and connected with the company by being recognized for their hard work
- Raises and bonuses are a huge way to show appreciation to your employees, if you have the ability to do this it is recommended. This is because your employees can only accept flattery for so long before they need a more tangible appreciation such as a raise/bonus. Especially today when it is not taboo to talk about salaries or raises and compare them to different companies. You don’t want to lose a great employee because they feel undervalued and in turn leave for a company that could value them better. Your employees may love working at the company, but at some point, they may feel they need to search elsewhere that will have more opportunities.
- This is not meant to make businesses/owners worry, but to show that valuing your employees is as important as valuing your customers, after all, they are doing the work. By implementing these things you will see benefits to not only the work environment but also the productivity of your business!
- Employees will only get satisfaction from verbal praises for so long before they begin to not feel valued by it.
- Practice Mindfulness
- Pay attention to those employed in your company. Be open to hearing your employee’s voices without judgment and listen to the ideas being given that can improve your business. People who do not feel heard will eventually cease trying and search elsewhere where they will be heard and overall valued.
- Pay attention to those employed in your company. Be open to hearing your employee’s voices without judgment and listen to the ideas being given that can improve your business. People who do not feel heard will eventually cease trying and search elsewhere where they will be heard and overall valued.
- Provide Opportunities to Learn and Exceed
- People don’t want to become stuck in one continuous loop of doing the same things every single day, it’s exhausting. They will begin to feel stuck and crave something more from what they are doing.
- By providing ways to learn and expand their roles in the company they will gain increased satisfaction and begin to strive to do better work. This gives immediate benefits to you in return as the boss because the business will show improvements and growth.
- Learning also inspires your people to collaborate and learn from each other which will increase inner company relationships and grow a positive office culture.
- Company morale is very important for your people and it can increase engagement, happiness, and productivity so why wouldn’t you do this?
- Create a mentoring program for the team
- Along with benefits like health, dental, 401K, and others, it would be a beneficial idea to enable opportunities like a mentor program because it can benefit to have someone with more wisdom mentor someone else who can gain emotional benefits, self-confidence, and mental health while learning from each other.
- Promote mental health
- Mental health is beginning to not be seen as such a negative topic and people are wanting to address their feelings more.
- To help promote this consider offering mental health programs to your employees. This will improve morale and show your employees you do not only care about the work they produce, but also care about them as people.
Don’t Burn Yourself Out and How
We work to live, not live to work
- What makes YOU happy?
- Make a list of everything you enjoy and prioritize what is most important to you. Then list your responsibilities and build them into the list, but always keep your number 1 enjoyment at the top.
- SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP
- Sleep is so much more important than we think it is sometimes and sometimes we neglect this because we want to work to be the best. If you’re anything like me and feel like you need to sacrifice one of the most basic needs to keep going because you just can’t stop going and progressing. It’s understandable.
- 43% of US workers are sleep deprived, 62% of night workers do not get proper hours of sleep, 11% of the US do not get proper sleep every night and 70% do not get proper sleep at least once a month
- Make Self Care Nonnegotiable and schedule it if needed
- Many people and things will try to get in the way of your self-care because there is always something else to be done.
- Be firm in your personal time and do not become someone else’s doormat that you sacrifice your peace and they are the only ones to gain from it.
- Be kind yet firm when asserting your need for time
- Be Honest about your Needs and to Others
- Use Those Vacation Days, it’s Not a Crime!
- Get your Body Moving especially when busy
- When working on something important it is common to get stuck or become disorganized in your thought. Getting up and moving not only does it help your body, but your brain can think better and concentrate on what you need more efficiently.
- Make time for what gives YOU energy
- How much energy can you lose/give others before you have none for yourself?
- Focus on your inner motivation
- What motivates you to get up and do what you do each day? Everyone has motivators to get up and go like: the need to live, loved ones, children, proving doubters wrong, etc.
- Set your boundaries
- To-do lists are amazing!
- Start your day off right with what you love and give yourself self-care moments throughout the day
- Be Kind to yourself
- Love and accept who you are
Inner Self Care
The self-care that we see on many self-care tips is mainly temporary like going for a girl’s night, bubble baths, breathing exercises, reading a book, and more. However imagine if we could implement them into our life completely to help us not become overworked, stressed out, sleep deprived, and unhappy. How can we help ourselves to prevent the “funks” throughout our lives?
- Live Healthily
- Living healthy doesn’t mean restricting yourself or going on crazy diets and forcing yourself to eat things you do not enjoy.
- Find what works for you
- Practice good hygiene
- Good hygiene isn’t just showering and brushing your teeth, but also keeping a tidy home and even dressing well. This isn’t just for how others see you, but also for how you see and feel about yourself.
- Remember how it feels after you really clean your room and everything feels clean and organized? Does it feel like with your area put together that your life is also?
- This is because the physical act of cleaning reduces stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. You can feel like you can think again and be a more productive person. If you are someone who used to struggle to keep your room clean and it quickly got out of control here’s a tip: Every time you are leaving your room look around and see if anything needs to be cleaned up, and if it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes just do it right then and there. This will help to prevent your room from getting out of control along with your mentality
- Now as for your physical hygiene, you can take care of this while also your inner self-care/ mind. When you do things that physically satisfy you they will also improve your mental state.
- Each day in the morning look in the mirror and just appreciate yourself and how you deserve to be taken care of and appreciated. After all, if you do not care or appreciate yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?
- When showering take the time to enjoy the feeling of the warm water and the feeling of getting clean.
- While brushing your teeth think about good things that you are planning to do this week or have done. This will make you brush for longer if you distract yourself rather than brushing quickly and not doing a good job.
- Dress for yourself and nobody else. Now, this doesn’t mean getting all dressed up every day, sweats are perfect too. Just as long as you feel good in it then others will see that as well. You do not need fancy clothes to look good and feel good, try to find a couple of outfits that you feel good in on the days that you wake up not feeling the most confident.
- Surround yourself with loved ones that lift you up not down
- Have you ever heard the phrase “you are who you surround yourself with”? If not here’s a simple explanation. When you surround yourself around others that are pessimistic, have a negative view of life, don’t try to accomplish anything/ lack ambition you will also begin to feel the same as them without realizing it.
- However, if you are surrounded by people who want to go and do things with their life, practice good habits, and lift you up so that you want to become the best version of yourself with them. Then you will grow as a person who enjoys life and strives for your own care along with others.
- Research has shown that increased happiness in people is from having good and nurturing relationships with others.
- Keeping healthy relationships has physical benefits as well like lower blood pressure and overall longer life. Who wouldn’t want that?
- Do what you enjoy
- Make a list of everything you enjoy out of life like hobbies and rank them by what gives you the most satisfaction. Is it art? sports? reading? Relaxing in nature? hiking? baking/cooking? Whatever it is set time aside that you can practice your hobby without thinking of anything else like work
- Set time for relaxation
If your Compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete
Jack Kornfield
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